


The Difference Between What Is and What Could Be

by Enina



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Eobard is also there, Other, a brief look into Harrison's mind, as usual, but only mentioned, he's still able to be creepy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 23:12:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5720593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enina/pseuds/Enina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harrison know that he can a bit ruthless at times. This doesn't mean that he's a monster, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Difference Between What Is and What Could Be

**Author's Note:**

> This is for my dear ladyofpride, and her Harrison Wells Appreciation Ficathon 2016! :)
> 
> I hope you'll like it, sweetheart! <3

Harrison Wells is an opportunist.

One that is smarter than most, something he is well aware of.

You need to be extraordinary smart and persistent if you want to get somewhere and aren’t satisfied with mediocrity.

Being a rich and famous scientist, the head of S.T.A.R. labs, one of the most prestigious scientific institutions in the country, shows that he is someone who has earned to get his peers’ respect.

People understand that, and if you are smart enough to use this, then you can get about anything from them.

It’s all about expectations and how to fulfill them.

Expectations to introduce lucrative new inventions to his shareholders, expectations to declare to the world at large that what they do will make everybody’s life so much easier, so much more comfortable, so much safer.

Getting on top and staying on there is difficult, you don’t only need the smarts to do so but also a bit of ruthlessness, and if Harrison is anything, it is a quick learner. He never particularly liked to use people, to hurt them, he sees it as a necessary evil to achieve his goals, and generally tries not to, but he never really let people hold him back if they stood in his way either.

Something else that is necessary to get people to trust in his ideas, to invest in him, is to know how to act, how to sell them your visions, the grander the better. If you’ve gotten the right momentum, nearly nothing can stop you as long as you’re able to make people believe in you.

Thus, it is a good thing that Harrison doesn’t only possess a brilliant mind but also the necessary acting chops.

Sometimes, when he had enough of dealing with investors and deadlines – when investors and deadlines were still the only problem he has to worry about – he considered the possibility to turn his attention to the theatre and become an actor.

He likes to thinks that he would also excel there…

Well, it’s an amusing notion, at least.

In any case, people will always support you and give you about anything you ask for as long as you make them believe that they will get something in return that will be worth their money, their time, or their patience. You just have to realize what it is what they want which hardly ever differs from the three basic desire everybody seems to have – money, power, and happiness.

He isn’t different in this regard.

He also wants happiness. He already has more money than he really knows that to do with, and, although he never really cared for it, with money comes a certain degree of power as well.

Happiness is a different topic altogether, though.

His happiness is something he didn’t pay too much mind to until it was taken from him, and he was forced to realize that neither being extraordinary brilliant nor rich can help him to get it back.

Jesse is his only child, she is stubborn and brilliant, so much like him, but she lacks his willingness to look ahead, to focus on her goals, and the ambition to do what’s necessary to succeed in this world and come out on top, even if it should go against her morals at times.

She is too much like her mother, persisting and clever but also too kind and too righteous. She has never liked that he is willing to play dirty at times, never appreciated the fact that it was his willingness to use people that eventually got them to where they are today.

Her mother did neither, but love is a very powerful think. It can make you look past certain something you usually wouldn’t stand for, ignore flaws when it comes to the ones you love, go against your own sense of right…

Harrison is grateful for it as he knows that they could have never been together, could never have had Jesse if she hadn’t been willing to look away in this regard…

These days he doesn’t really like to think of his past anymore.

The last couple of months have changed a lot. Not only his perception of reality and the limits of theoretical physics, but also how he looks at himself and the choices he made in his life so far.

Harrison likes to be straight with himself, he knows that he is willing to use people to a degree if it gets him to his goal, and he can make his peace with it. This doesn’t mean that he is a monster, though.

There is a line he won’t cross, something that would make it impossible for him to look at himself in the mirror in the morning. While he doesn’t think too highly of goody two-shoes like Garrick, he does know that you can bend the definition of good only so far before you find yourself knee deep in the cold biting morass of irredeemable.

He would do what is necessary to get Jesse, he has to. She is the only part of his life he ever has and always will love unconditionally. She _is_ his happiness, no matter how often they fight, how much they disagree. She will always be his only child, his daughter.

He is no longer willing to sell his soul to the devil to get her back, though. Not if he could work around it, at least.

After all, he has learned what would happen if he went down this lonely dark path that would open up before him should he decide to let go of all his morals.

Even now, after having stayed on this earth for months, he can still see the brief flicker of distrust and hurt in people’s eyes whenever he enters a room. It takes them a moment to remind themselves that he is not _their_ Harrison Wells, not Eobard Thawne, but _Harry_ – and isn’t it ironical that he had dared to hope that he would never have to be called this stupid aversion of his name again after becoming one of the most recognized scientists in his field of work? – who is another person entirely.

Harrison gets it, though, after learning what the psychotic speedster did, he can understand why they still keep looking at him with wariness whenever they think he wouldn’t notice.

It is not ideal, it makes things more complicated, but he has never been a people’s person, and he is no stranger to dislike from his peers. What unsettles him, though, is that he has started to realize that he isn’t entirely different from Thawne who may be a psychotic, egoistic jackass of a man, but also someone whose choices he can understand and even advocate for to a degree. The notion that it would be possible for him to turn out like this man, who puts his own desire before anybody, fills him with unease whenever he thinks too hard about it, and he is too self-aware to just ignore it.

This is one of the reasons why he doesn’t like to be around Thawne, and it is really an uncomfortable predicament that _team Flash_ is depending on the speedster’s help to keep up with Zoom. It is an understandable source for rising tension among them, and Harrison has been pushed away from the inner circle of the team once again, likely unconsciously, as he may not be Eobard Thawne, but he is still a walking, talking reminder of their former mentor and friend to them.

Unfortunately, his initial assumption that having Thawne look different this time around would be beneficial in this regard hasn’t turned out to be true at all, and, since that man’s arrival, Harrison’s presence has grown palpably more daunting on the others. Especially on Barry, who keeps away from him as much as possible which is annoying to no end because Harrison needs to work with him, he needs his trust to get rid of Zoom and to get his daughter back.

… and maybe he has grown to like the young man just a little bit. The young hero who tries to do the right things, to make the right choices, despite how obviously in over his head he is. He even put effort into getting to know Harrison after his initial distrust, at least till the murderer of his mother reappeared.

This makes things difficult again, and Harrison despite his initial decision to stay out of any of this drama, he can’t help but share the others’ dislike for the once dead presumed speedster.

Eobard is a nasty fellow, one who hides the ugliness of his being behind a nearly unnatural amount of charm and affected friendliness, someone who is even more talented at manipulating people than he is.

There haven’t been many people Harrison met so far who really scared him, certainly not most of the lunatics they have on his earth, the ones who like to dress up in silly costumes and call themselves _supervillains_ , and certainly not Garrick with his _holier than thou_ – attitude.

This is different, though.

He may tend to a certain arrogance at times but not enough so to not recognize when someone is a danger to him, and, like Zoom, Eobard Thawne is someone to be wary of, someone it is _sensible_ to fear.

Especially because it seems that this man, unlike Barry or any of the others, isn’t keen on keeping a safe distance to him, but seems to downright seek his presence out.

It causes Harrison’s hair to stand on end whenever the man is in the same room as him, watching him, with this little amused knowing smile of his, laughing at him silently as if he was in on some joke that was lost on anybody else.

As if Thawne knew him at all.

It is unnerving, especially because Harrison has the feeling that he tries to _bait_ him, and he doesn’t know why or for what.

He knows that Thawne is shadowing – _stalking_ – him at times, he can feel the man close by when he is alone, when none of the others is around.

The notion that the speedster could do the same to him he did to the Harrison Wells of this world has occurred to him before, but it makes no sense. Thawne wouldn’t gain anything from it.

It is difficult to try and come up with what could go on in the mind of a lunatic, though.

Thawne is obsessive, he could have developed a similar interest in him like he possesses for Barry, as Harrison knows that the man is also watching the younger speedster. Maybe it is due to how he used to own a part of this earth’s Wells once, a side effect of the camouflaging process as Harrison has learned.

It’s an upsetting thought, and he tries to stay away from him and not show how much his presence intimidates him, but he is pretty sure he knows anyway.

Maybe it is just a game to him, though, maybe he just wants to get a rise out of him.

It’s impossible to tell without outright asking Thawne, he is certainly not going to do so.

Whatever the reason, Harrison knows that despite the unease this man’s mere presence causes him, he will probably always be grateful in a way to have met him, because Thawne made him understand so much better than Jesse ever could what it would really mean for him to let go of all of his scruples and forget what it means to care for others.

**Author's Note:**

> That was fun! :3
> 
> Hope you guys liked it!


End file.
